So Monday came and Sarah had a post-op appointment with Dr.
Moore (general surgeon) to evaluate a “mass” that was located at the top of her
left breast near the armpit. Sarah’s
cosmetic surgeon Dr. Rhee had seen Sarah last Thursday and was a little concerned
but not overly stressed about the mass and therefore advised Sarah to see Dr.
Moore and possibly get an ultrasound. So
Dr. Moore “concured” with Dr. Rhee….I like when doctors use concur reminds me
of the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio “Catch Me If You Can” where he plays a con
man and there is a portion of the film where he is impersonating a head surgeon of
an ER department and he is asking all the fellow doctors if they “concur” since he has
no idea what the hell is going on or what to do with an ER patient that shows
up in the Emergency Room….so the correlation is if you see a doctor saying I
concur either they have nothing else to add professionally or they have no idea what is going on and therefore are
agreeing with another physicians assessment…LOL! I love Dr. Moore and she’s a great surgeon….that
just pops into my head anytime I hear “concur”….now the same will be true for
each of you next time you hear “concur”…yeah you’re welcome! Smile because you will think of this next time you hear someone say “concur”….haha....So off to Sally Jobe
we go for an ultrasound to see what the mass is….we got in on Monday afternoon
since they are able to squeeze us in!
We arrive at Sally Jobe and all those same feelings and
concerns from February start up again….the wondering, stress, and concern! I’m sitting in the reception area waiting for
Sarah to finish and get called back meanwhile I’m watching house hunters on HG..…nice selection of properties if I do ay so myself…you can get some pretty
big houses in Texas for your dollar!
Once Sarah is done they escort me through their maze of corridors to get
back to her imaging room where we wait for the radiologist. The doc comes in and says good news the mass
is a “well-defined hypoechoic mass, presumed seroma”….laymen terms it’s a fluid-filled
mass which is good…most likely as a result of her reduced swelling and
post-operative healing. And of course
the radiologist continues and says there one more thing “your lymph nodes
appear to be enlarged and quite noticeable on the ultrasound, perhaps they were missed during surgery,
I suggest you follow up with your oncologist to determine a course of action”….yeah
thanks doc I “concur”…great check one thing off our list and then add another….appreciate
that!
So with that lovely news we go into Tuesday with excitement that
this is Sarah’s last chemo treatment…..FREAKING AWESOME!!! So pumped that she is through this portion of
her care! Well that was short lived and
crushed by the report from the radiologist at Sally Jobe…Sarah’s oncologist
reviews the report and indicates that they are recommending biopsy of the enlarged
lymph node and the adjacent nodule….”nodule” WTF is a “nodule”…there was no
discussion of this yesterday….seriously what is going on!?!?! Well of course the oncologist has some
reservations about what that possibly could be and said Sarah has to get a
biopsy of this tissue ASAP so Sarah was appointed for Wednesday at 7am. So we are down and frustrated at this point and Sarah still has to
go into chemo….hang in there honey! Keep
your spirits up….at this point I feel like we are in the ring with Mike Tyson
and we keep getting knocked down every time we get up and we can’t even get out
of the damn first round of the fight!
Wednesday morning came fast and she was back at Sally Jobe
for her biopsies and again an all too familiar place that started this venture
back in February…..yes HG was on again this time I got to watch “Property
Virgins”….these people and their unrealistic expectations for their first house….give
me a break with all of their wants and demands…I don’t know how you real estate
agents out there do it with some of these clients. Yeah I got to watch about 3 episodes…Sarah eventually
came out and said that the radiologist that did the procedures said that he did
not see these “nodules” and only saw lymph nodes….seriously damn nodules!!! Either way enlarged lymph nodes in Sarah on
the left side is still concerning and of course enlarged lymph nodes can be for
a number of reason that are not associated with cancer but they can also be
CANCER!
Let’s just say that the rest of Wednesday, Wednesday night
and today pretty much sucked just waiting to hear the biopsy results because if
things came back malignant that would mean a whole new course of care
(additionally surgery, more chemo, stronger drugs, etc)! Not what we want at
all….so back to the waiting game…and waiting!
So we have an appointment with the oncologist today at 3:30 pm and I’m
always conflicted because if they get the report they sometimes call with good
news and other times they just do it at the appointment…other times is just
takes that long to get the report back and no news is good new SOMETIMES and
other times bad news typically travels faster than good! So as you can imagine you’re constantly
trying to assess the situation and convince yourself why you haven’t heard something
in a favorable manner but at the same time in the back of your mind your
thinking they haven’t called because they want to give us the bad news in
person! As you can imagine this pretty
much sucks.
We get the oncologist for the appointment and I was honest
with Sarah and said I was worried….that constant positivity I try to embody was
just not there and I was struggling to make sense of everything…..why is this
happening? What else can we go
through?.........to be honest I think Sarah was feeling the exact same as I
was!!! So they bring us back and do the
whole weight, blood pressure and temperature check and then we go sit and wait
in the consultation room…..I tell her “if we get good news I’m doing a freaking
cartwheel out the front door when we leave”……..yes for those of you wondering I
can indeed do a perfect cartwheel! About
1 minute after that Sarah’s phone rings and she says “How funny would that be
if this is the oncologist calling to give us the news even though we are
sitting in the consult room”….it wasn’t them but it was Dr. Moore's RN Renee and
all I heard was BENIGN on both tissue samples……I screamed for joy in that room
and tears filled my eyes….BENIGN no cancer in the lymph nodes. Then her oncologist Dr. Basche came in
literally 30 seconds later and the first thing out of her mouth was “great news
the results are benign on both biopsies”.
I had to burst her bubble that Renee from Dr. Moore’s office totally
stole her thunder. You could tell she
was elated to give us the news either way…..
So what can I say……this week has been a rollercoaster of
emotions amongst other things…….today is absolutely a great day! All that stress and tension is gone. Sarah is DONE WITH CHEMO….NO MORE!! Yaaaayyyyyyyy…..next
step is to get her through the next two weeks of post-chemo stuff and then on
to “new boobs” first of September.
Again thank you everyone for everything……large and
small! Everything that everyone does
truly matters and we are fortunate to have so many of you out there thinking,
praying and taking good care of us during this difficult time. Today was a victory so congratulate Sarah when
you get a chance on her last chemo session and staying strong……she’s a warrior
and kicking cancer’s ass at every opportunity!
I will keep everyone up to date as we come close to “New Boob Day”….God
bless!!!
For those of you wondering did I do that cartwheel!??!!?……hell
yeah I did right through the front doors as we were leaving!
Yo Cancer….You messed with the wrong bitch!
Mac
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